Teachers employed in public schools for twen- Number of children of school age who have at- 919,058 15,664 5,031 21,450 11.789 11,552 369,571 1,183,017 451 8,538 1,469 Wool, 9,807,000 635,500 519,800 By reducing the wheat to flour, the quantity of the latter left at tide-water, within the period mentioned, for 1866, compared with that of 1865, shows a deficiency of 1,112,640 barrels flour. On the 1st of December, 1866, the military organization of the State was composed as follows: 104 regiments of infantry, 3 regiments of cavalry, 1 regiment of artillery, 1 battalion of infantry, 2 battalions of artillery, 3 batteries of artillery, 1 battalion of cavalry, 1 independent battery, 2 light howitzer batteries, 1 squadron of cavalry-numbering in all about 50,000 men. A marked improvement was reported in the National Guard, in respect to discipline and efficiency. The appropriations for the purchase of uniforms, arms, and equipments, had all been expended, and still several thousand men, enrolled and organized, were unsupplied. The appropriation of $150,000, made at the session of the Legislature in 1866, payable out of fines and taxes to be collected from the reserve militia force, has not been realized. Three enrolments have been made, or attempted, since the new militia law was passed; under those of 1862 and 1864, no fines or taxes were realized to the treasury, owing to some legal difficulties in the way of enforcing the law. In making the third enrolment (for 1866), more care was taken to conform strictly to the requirements of the law, and it is expected that the militia fund will be augmented thereby. The military agencies at Washington and Albany, and the temporary Soldiers' Home, through which the aid of the State has been disbursed, have been of great service to those who needed their assistance. Over 17,000 claims have been prepared and forwarded; 30,000 letters have been written; $600,000 have been collected. On the 1st of January, 1867, there were about 15,000 applications pending, on which it is expected that $1,500,000 will be obtained, during the ensuing year. The following brief summary gives the most important and interesting facts, with regard to the State common schools, for the year 1866: RECEIPTS FOR SUPPORT OF COMMON SCHOOLS. Public school moneys, including mill tax.... $1.406,080 48 Voluntary taxation in the school districts.. Rate bills.. Other sources.. 4,550,111 86 Aggregate number of weeks' school. emies... Number of teachers in teachers' classes in acad- $1,468,422 22 According to this report, the number of children and youth in daily attendance at the public school is 30.02 per cent. of the entire number between 5 and 21 years of age, or 43.67 per cent. of the entire number of children between 6 and 17 years of age. The commission appointed by the Legislature of 1866, to invite proposals for the establishment of four more normal schools, received applications from several localities, making liberal offers of land, buildings, all necessary furniture and apparatus, or their equivalent in money; and after full consideration, Potsdam, Cortland, Brockport, and Fredonia, were selected as the places for the schools. The commission were so much impressed by the public spirit manifested in this connection, that they recommended to the Legislature to authorize the establishment of six additional schools on the same terms and conditions as those already provided for. The University Convocation was held at Albany in August, and a number of measures were adopted to advance the interests of education in the State. A resolution was adopted appointing the presidents of the colleges of the State a committee to collect and report at the next convocation the materials for forming the "Military Roll of Honor of the State of New York, in connection with the great and successful struggle for maintaining the life and honor of the nation." A committee was also named, to report at a future time, on the subject of a suitable course of study, and appropriate testimonials for females in the higher institutions of learning in the State. At a meeting of the regents of the university, January 11, 1867, the distribution of $40,000 of the income of the literary fund for 1866 was made among the academies entitled to participate therein. Much excitement was caused in the Metro714,684 90 politan Police District, including New York City and surrounding territory, by the enforcement of the new excise law. After a rigid application of the law for a few days, it was given up by the authorities until its constitutionality could be decided by the highest court of the State. Some of the liquor dealers continued to comply with the law during that interval; but practically it was of no effect. In order that the troublesome question might be disposed of as quickly as possible, Governor Fenton issued the following proclamation, calling a special term of the Supreme Court of the First Judicial District: I, Reuben E. Fenton, Governor of the State of New York, by virtue of the power reposed in me by section twenty-four of the code of procedure, and at the solicitation of the Board of Excise for the Metropolitan Police District, as expressed by the following official record of their proceedings, to wit: "At a meeting of the Board of Excise for the Metropolitan Police District, held at No. 301 Mott Street, in the city of New York, on the 27th day of July, 1866, it was resolved that his Excellency, the Governor of this State, be requested to appoint an extraordinary gen eral term of the Supreme Court, to be held in the First Judicial District of the State, at as early a day as practicable," do hereby appoint an extraordinary general term of the Supreme Court, to be held in and for the First Judicial District of this State, at the usual place of holding the general terms of the Supreme Court, in and for the said district, in the city of New York, on the 29th day of August, 1866, at ten o'clock, A. M., of that day, for the hearing and decision of all cases, criminal or civil, arising under chapter 578 of the laws of 1866, which may be presented to said court. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the privy seal of the State, at the city of Albany, this 7th day of August, 1866. R. E. FENTON. DANIEL W. MERCHANT, Acting Private Secretary. At this court a case was argued, embracing the controverted points, and a decision rendered sustaining the constitutionality of the law. The judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals, and officially reported as follows: Board of Excise in Metropolitan District vs. Jackson S. Schultz, etc., and several other cases.-The Court of Appeals have unanimously affirmed the judgment of the General Term in the First District, holding the Excise Law of April 14, 1866, constitutional and valid. The court held that the provisions of that act were within the scope of legislative authority, which extended to all subjects not prohibited by the Constitution; that the right to regulate the trafficking in intoxicating liquors is prohibited by no constitutional restriction; that such regulation does not interfere with or restrain one of his liberty or property within the prohibitions of the Constitution; that licenses to sell liquors are mere temporary permits to do that which, without such permit, would be an offence; that such license is no contract between the State and the licensee-giving the latter any vested right; that such licenses are a part of the internal system of the State, and are usual in the exercise of police powers, and are subject to the direction of the State, which may revoke, modify, or continue them at pleasure; that the necessary power of the Legislature over all subjects of internal police regulation is a part of the constitutional grant of powers which cannot be sold, given away or relinquished; and in respect to which no Legis lature can bind its successor. Judgment affirmed. JOEL TIFFANY, State Reporter. The case of the New York State agents at Washington, (see ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA for 1864,) was ultimately decided by the acquittal and honorable discharge of the accused parties. It will be remembered that these agents (Colonel Samuel North, Levi Cohn, and Morvin M. Jones) were arrested at Washington, and consigned to the Old Capitol Prison on the charge of "defrauding soldiers of their vote." Colonel North was the duly accredited agent of the State, appointed to look after the interests of the New York volunteers at Washington; Mr. Colin was a paymaster of the State, temporarily at Washington for the purpose of paying bounties to the reënlisted men; and Mr. Jones was connected with the State agency in the capacity of a visitor of hospitals. All the parties had proved energetic and highly useful in the discharge of their several duties. Their arrest was claimed by their personal and political friends to have been dictated by partisan hostility, and without justification. After an incarceration of three months, during which time they suffered many privations and hardships, they were discharged on the 26th of January, 1865, nineteen days subsequent to the formal rendering of the verdict of "not guilty." The following is the official record of the fact, made public in February, 1867: WAR DEPARTMENT, Hon. Charles Goodyear: SIR: By direction of the Secretary of War, I have the honor to transmit to you the enclosed copy of the findings and judgment of the Military Commission in the case of Samuel North. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. HOLT, Judge-Advocate General. Findings of the Military Commission. [Copy.] The Commission was then cleared for deliberation, and, after due consideration, do find the accused Samuel North, Levi Cohn, and Morvin M. Jones, as follows: As to the defendants, Samuel North and Levi Cohn: As to the defendant Morvin M. Jones: As to the specification-GUILTY, except as to the words "With the intent and for the purpose of having such blank, so signed, used as and for the act and deed of the real soldier, whose name purported to be signed thereto, and in fraud of the true electors." As to the charge-NOT GUILTY. And do, therefore, acquit said Samuel North, Levi Cohn, and Morvin M. Jones. [Signed] ABNER DOUBLEDAY, President of Military Commission. JOHN A. FOSTER, Colonel and Judge-Advocate, [Official.] J. HOLT, Judge-Advocate General. In July, 1866, there was a revival of antirent troubles in the town of Knox, Albany County, and a battalion of the tenth regiment of militia was detailed to suppress the disturbances. The troops were met by seventy or eighty persons, who broke and ran, leaving nine prisoners in the hands of the military. No fire-arms were used, and no actual bodily resistance was given. In August following similar troubles occurred in the town of Berne, in the same county. As Colonel Church, agent for the owners, was riding through the country, he was fired at twice by a party of men concealed behind some bushes by the roadside. The occupants of the wagon were not hit, but the horses were wounded. Four men were subsequently arrested for this outrage, and held for trial on the charge of assault with intent to kill. The Legislature, at its regular session in 1866, transacted but little business of general and public interest. The following resolutions relative to national questions, were adopted by a large majority in both houses: Resolved, That it is our mature and deliberate conviction that no State within which there has been insubordination or rebellion should be admitted to share in the national legislation, until it presents itself, not only in an attitude of loyalty and harmony, but in the persons of representatives whose loyalty cannot be questioned; and that each House of Congress is the sole judge of the qualifications and election of its members, and has full power to determine for itself when the constituency or the representatives meet the conditions above set forth. Resolved, That it is our conviction, that as the country was pledged in the beginning and throughout the war against the rebellion to a vigorous prosecution thereof, to the great and permanent end of the vindication of the national integrity, and the reëstablishment of the national government; that, as it accepted during its progress, as a measure of war, just and constitutional at the time of its utterance, the President's Proclamation of Emancipation; that, as it adopted at its close, as a measure of high national policy and justice, the constitutional amendment, which not only by the organic law theoretically made freedom universal, but, quite as important, conferred upon Congress all the constitutional powers needful to establish and enforce universal freedom in practice and in fact; so the nation is pledged to the world, to humanity, and, most of all, to the freedmen, that in all lawful ways the liberty and civil rights of every human being subject to the Government of the United States shall be protected and enforced, regardless of race, color, or condition, against every wrongful opposing law, ordinance, regulation, custom, or prejudice; and that the spirit which formed and organized and developed to the present strength that policy, has not fulfilled its allotted work until every subject of that government stands free not only, but equal before the law. Resolved, That we are in favor of the extension of equal suffrage in the District of Columbia, to all male citizens of a suitable age. A special session of the Senate, as a High Court of Impeachment, was convened in August by Governor Fenton, for the trial of Judge Smith, of Oneida County, on the charge of improper conduct in connection with filling the quota of that county, under the call for volunteers in December, 1864. Hon. B. Sedgwick, of Syracuse, and Mr. Hunt, of Utica, appeared for the prosecution, and Hon. Ira Shafer and Henry Smith, Esq., of Albany, for the defence. The trial occupied four days, and during its progress the fact came out that the message from the Governor to the Senate, on the 14th of February, calling them together for this extraordinary session, had afterward been altered and amended without the knowledge of the Senate. The Senate refused to recognize the modifications, and decided that the trial should be had on the message as originally read. Being unable to find any record upon which to try the defendant, the Senate therefore adjourned. leaving the case undecided. At the succeeding regular session Judge Smith was removed from office. While the special session of the Senate was in progress, President Johnson, Secretary Seward, General Grant, Admiral Farragut, and other distinguished gentlemen, passed through Albany on their way to the West. A series of resolutions welcoming "the President of the United States, and our distinguished fellow-citizens, General Grant and Admiral Farragut," to the city, were offered in the Senate. A motion was made to amend by including the name of Hon. W. H. Seward, Secretary of State, which was lost by a vote of 8 to 12. The resolutions were finally adopted as follows, the first by a vote of 17 to 4, the second by a vote of 16 to 3: Resolved, That the Senate do, on behalf of the people of the State of New York, welcome His Excellency the President of the United States, and the other distinguished personages accompanying him, to our territory. Resolved, That our distinguished fellow-citizens, General Grant and Admiral Farragut, who are expected at the State capital to-morrow, be warmly welcomed to the soil of this State by this Senate, on behalf of a grateful people, who recognize their services and appreciate their worth. On September 30th, the total number of convicts in the several state prisons was 2,788, of whom 159 were females, and 70 insane. The aggregate value of all the prison property is estimated at $2,166,969.17. The following is a statement of the earnings and expenditures of the last fiscal year: Statistics of the State census for 1865, made public during the past year, reveal some interesting facts. The native citizens of the State form 67.34 per cent. of the population, showing an increase of 3.73 per cent. during the previous ten years; and during the same period there is a complemental decrease of every foreign element, except the German. The number of voters are 823,873, an increase of 170,551, a large proportion of whom are naturalized citizens. The negro population, now numbering 44,081, has been steadily diminishing for the last 25 years, while the Indians, living upon reservations, have increased. The census of 1860 reported 22,624 manufactories, having a capital of $172,895,651, and a product of $378,870,839. The last census, which exhibits the statistics for 1864, gives 24,572 establishments, with a capital of $228,674,187, and a product of $463,603,877. The increase of capital in five years is over 31 per cent., and in the value of products over 22 per cent. The valuations of property in the city of New York for 1866 were as follows: real, $425,360,884; personal, $181,423,471; total, $606,784,355. The valuations for the entire State in the same year were: real, $1,196,403,416; personal, $334,826,220; total, $1,531,229,636. It is probably owing to the prompt and efficient action of the Federal and State authorities that the city of New York escaped the cholera in 1866. At the request of the quarantine commissioners, the Secretary of War assigned for their use the steamship Illinois, and the Secretary of the Navy the sloops-of-war Saratoga and Portsmouth. These were placed entirely at the disposal of the commissioners, and were used for quarantine purposes. The Secretary of the Treasury detailed a revenue cutter at the port of New York, in charge of a special agent, to aid the commissioners in enforcing quarantine regulations. These and other preparations were scarcely completed, when the steamship Virginia arrived from Liverpool, having lost 46 passengers by cholera on the voyage, and having a large number of sick on board. While undergoing quarantine, her sick increased to 196. Since that time, 18 other vessels, infected with cholera, arrived from foreign ports. The health officer estimates that there were about 2,000 cases on board vessels during their Voyage, of which about 1,000 terminated fatally. The number of cases treated at quarantine were 651. Few, if any cases, the origin of which could be traced to the sick at quarantine, appeared on shore. Eight out of the eighteen vessels already mentioned arrived after November, when the cold weather had set in. The Democratic State Convention to nominate candidates for the fall election, was held at Albany, September 11th. John T. Hoffman received the nomination for Governor; and J. V. L. Pruyn, for Lieutenant-Governor. Resolutions of regret and condolence were passed relative to the death of Dean Richmond, a member of the State committee, and the following platform was adopted: The Democratic and National Union Electors of the State of New York, in convention assembled at Albany on this 12th day of September, 1866, hereby reaffirm the principles set forth by the convention held at Philadelphia on the 14th of August last. And further, we affirm that we, for our part, hold inviolable, and, as far as in us lies, will make good the faith of the nation, plighted by the Senate of the United States in its resolution of July 26, 1861; by the House of Representatives in the same resolution of July 22d; by General Grant at Appomattox Court VOL. VI.-35 House, and by President Johnson in his proclamation of amnesty of May 29, 1865, which fully, lawfully, and finally, restored to all the rights and functions of citizenship the great mass of the people of the Southern States, who, in their State Conventions and Legislatures, fulfilled every required condition, and who, by their delegations in the Philadelphia Convention, gave every needful pledge of the sincerity of their renewed allegiance, and their accep tance of the issue of the war. And, lastly, we affirm that the centralization of power in this State, no less than in the Union, is fatal to the harmony of our political system, and dangerous to the liberty of the citizen. Recent legislation at Albany has usurped a supreme yet fitful control of the local affairs which counties and municipalities are entitle to regulate. It has also exceeded any former precedent in its extravagant expenditures, and its fraudulent tampering with the have been squandered upon central schemes of local public works of the State. At Washington millions benefactions, and a partizan Congress, while reducing the appropriations for a patriotic soldiery, has not scrupled to enhance its own emoluments of office. Not to dwell upon other attendant evils, whose name is legion, we confidently appeal to the electors of this State to unite with us in a determined effort to restore the just balance of governmental power so wisely distributed by the fathers of the Constitution, and to arrest that monstrous corruption which is fast sapping the sources of public spirit and public virtue; and by such union and earnest effort to enlarge the freedom, lighten the burdens, and promote the happiness of the people of this State and Union. The Republican Convention assembled at Syracuse, on September 5th, and organized by the choice of Lyman Tremaine as chairman. Governor Fenton was renominated as the candidate for Governor; and Thomas G. Alvord for Lieutenant-Governor. The following resolutions were adopted: Resolved, That, by the grace of God, and the valor and intelligence of the people, the Constitution has been maintained as the supreme law of the land, and that every political, social, and industrial interest of the country, as well as the most earnest desire of every generous and patriotic heart, imperatively demand the speediest restoration of the Union which is consistent with constitutional justice and national safety. Resolved, That the Union of the United States is perpetual, and that no power exists, either in the Federal Government, or in the several States, rightly to dissolve or destroy it. No State can rightfully secede from the Union or withdraw, or withhold its representation to Congress with intent to prejudice the Government; nor can the jurisdiction of the general government over a State and its inhabitants, or its rightful authority to execute its laws therein, to any extent be lost or impaired by rebellion and war, or other unlawful conduct of a State, or by treaauthority of the Federal Government can in noson of its people. But while the constitutional wise be impaired by the acts of the State or its people, a State may, by rebellion and war on its part, or treason on the part of its inhabitants, or by the abrogation of its loyal State Government, and the creation and maintenance of one alien and hostile in its form, so far in fact rupture its relations to the Union as to suspend its power to exercise the right and privileges which it possessed under the Constitution. That against such rebelling State the Federal Government may wage war for its subjection, using for that purpose all the powers of the laws of war as recognized by the laws of nations; and when that end is accomplished it belongs to the legisla. · tive power of the Government to determine at what time the State, by the establishment of a government, republican in form under the Constitution, and the complete abandonment of its rebellion, and the return to loyalty of its inhabitants, may safely resume the exercise of its rights and privileges under the Constitution which have been inert and suspended by its own wrong; and the doctrine that such State has kept perfect and unimpaired all its rights and privileges while in rebellion and war, to be used at its option, and is itself to judge when it is in proper condition to resume their enjoyment, is false and pernicious; and the other doctrine, that the President is alone sole judge of the period when such suspension shall be at an end, and the State permitted to resume its power in the Union, is equally unsound. Resolved, That the pending amendment to the Constitution, proposed by Congress, which defines citizenship in the United States, and the civil rights of citizens, which equalizes national representation among the several States, which disables from national or local office-at the pleasure of the people represented in Congress--those who, having taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in rebellion against the same, and which declares the validity of the public debt of the United States, and invalidates every debt incurred by any attempt to overthrow the Union, is essential to engraft upon the organic law the legitimate results of the war, commends itself by its justice, humanity, and moderation, to every patriotic heart, and that when any of the late insurgent States shall adopt that amendment, such State should at once, by its loyal representatives, be permitted to resume its place in Congress. Resolved, That in pursuance of these principles, the late insurgent States were required by the President, subject to the approval of Congress, to accede to certain conditions including the ratification of the constitutional amendment of emancipation, which works a change in the constitutional basis of representation prejudicial to the equality of the States in Congress; that the continued absence of ten of the late insurgent States in Congress is due solely to their refusal to recognize this change, and that their claim to enter Congress before that change is acknowledged, is a demand that a bloody attempt to dissolve the Union shall be rewarded with increased representation of political power. Resolved, That inequalities of guaranties of person and political liberties are dangerous to the peace of States and the welfare of freemen, and that we shall sincerely rejoice if the adoption of the constitutional amendment shall tend to that equalization of all political rights among citizens of the Union upon which the future peace, prosperity, and power of the United States must depend. Resolved, That the President of the United States, in denouncing as unconstitutionally incompetent the Congress whose lawful authority he has officially recognized, convicts himself of usurpation of power, and that the tragical massacre of faithful citizens in Memphis and New Orleans should admonish him that his policy encourages a spirit fatal to national tranquillity, and which indefinitely delays the restoration of the Union. Then followed resolutions complimenting Governor Fenton for his efficient administration, approving the other candidates, etc. An interesting question, involving the right of an officer in the late Confederate army to vote in this State, was decided at the November term of the King's County Supreme Court. It came up on a mandamus, issued against the Registers of the First District of the 17th Ward of Brooklyn, commanding them to register the name of Augustus Wheeler as a voter at the ensuing election, or show cause why the same was not done. It appeared that Wheeler is a native of Georgia, and during the war served as an assistant-surgeon in the Southern army, but had been an inhabitant of New York for and claimed the right to the elective franchise, one year, and of King's County for six months, which the registers refused on the ground that he had been a Confederate soldier. After a full hearing, Judge Gilbert decided in favor of Mr. Wheeler's citizenship, and his right to vote. The official vote of the State for Governor was as follows: Fenton (Republican), 366,315; Hoffman (Democrat), 352,526; majority for Fenton, 13,789. The vote on the question of a constitutional convention stood: for the convention, 352,854; against, 256,364; majority for the convention, 96,490. The State Constitution of 1846 provided that the question of a constitutional convention be submitted to a vote at the several elections in 1866, and every twentieth year thereafter. NICARAGUA. (See CENTRAL AMERICA.) NITROLEUM, or NITRO-GLYCERINE To the peculiar class of compounds characterized by their tendency under certain conditions to sudden disruption, so that gases contained in or generated from them are allowed to resume with violence their proper volume-a class of bodies hence known as detonating or fulminating, and of which several other nitrogen-containing compounds afford marked instancesnitro-glycerine is at least one of the latest additions; while it is doubtless the most powerful of such explosive agents as yet brought into practical use. This substance, discovered by Sobrero in 1847, and first experimented with as an explosive for blasting by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish engineer, in 1864, is a heavy liquid, of oily consistency, and of an amber or brownish color. It has been known, among other names, as "Nobel's blasting oil," "glonoin oil," and (most commonly)" nitro-glycerine; " while the unquestionably preferable term, nitroleum, has recently been applied to it by Colonel Shaffner. Nitroleum is produced by adding glycerine in successive small quantities to a mixture (according to one account) of 1 volume of nitric acid (sp. gr., 1.43) and 2 of sulphuric acid (sp. gr., 1.83), the acids being meanwhile artificially cooled. Upon subsequently pouring the mixture into water, the oil, at once insoluble in and heavier than that liquid, separates and collects at the bottom of the vessel. Although as yet the accounts given of its composition differ some what, still this oil is probably glycerine in which a certain number of atoms of hydrogen are replaced by the compound radical NO.; and its formula (O. S.) has been stated as C. Hs (NO) О6. In presence of nascent hydrogen, sulphydric acid, and alkalies, nitroleum separates into glycerine and (it appears) nitric acid. cific gravity is 1.6; and it is readily soluble in common alcohol, ether, methylic alcohol (wood Its spe |